We present this work in honor of the poet’s 150th birthday.

 

Tropic village night: the hours
slow and grave. The vesper bell,
and then, as the ladies return,
the musical closing of the gate…

Suddenly, the incongruous sound
of peasant clogs. And in the drowsiness
of things, what a smell of chocolate
and cheese, of yucca bread and honey-cake!

Far off in clandestine shadow,
in the rustic stable, a jackass
brays taps for his donkey love
with a friendly squeeze on his accordion…

Only the druggist, my neighbour,
keeps stolid watch behind his counter,
to sell —with a sibylline gesture—
two cents’ worth of castor oil…

While the moon, from its arcane depth,
outlines the church. In its blue vault
the tumid moon is like a pimple…
And the church an enormous nursing-bottle

Translation by Donald Devenish Walsh

We present this work in honor of the Colombian holiday, Children’s Day.

 

Butterfly, flying by
rich in colour, full of grace
What do you live on up high?
Why do you that rose embrace?

I live off flowers and smells
and off the fountain’s foam,
and from the brilliant sun flare
that clothes me in a coloured robe.

Will you gift me your two wings?
They’re so lovely… Would you please?
Colour to my clothes they’ll bring
if the splendor of your dress I seize.

Little boy, oh, little boy
you who own so many clothes,
why would you wish to employ
the one God gave me and I own?

Why would you need wings
if you don’t fly as I do?
What’s left for me in the winds
if I give my all to you?

Countless joyful days
the Lord sends your way,
but I have just one tomorrow;
please don’t turn it into sorrow.

Do you regale in bringing death?
Would you take a butterfly’s last breath?
Perhaps on a rose nearby
soon my stiff body you’ll find.

The boy heeded fondly
the butterfly’s bitter protest,
and a drop of pure honey
with a sweet wink he offered her.

Flying anxiously she lands
on the boy’s rosy palm
and right there, satisfied,
trembling in delight,
the butterfly breathed its last.

Translation by Sandra Gaviria-Buck

 

I come today to high Pichincha’s brow,
forced by the cannon of the whites to flee—
a wanderer like the sun, fiery like him,
like the sun, free!

Hear, Father Sun! The throne lies shattered now
low in the dust; profaned thine altars be.
Alone to-day I magnify thy name—
alone, but free!

Hear, Father Sun! The brand of slavery
I will not wear, for all the world to see.
Hither I come today to slay myself,
and to die free!

Today when thou are setting in the west
thous canst behold me from the distant sea
chanting thy hymns on the volcano’s crest,
singing, and free!

To-morrow, when thy radiant crown once more
far in the east shall shine forth gloriously,
thine earliest ray will only gild my grave—
grave of the free!

On it the condor from the sky will stoop,
that makes its home where lofty summits be;
there will it lay its eggs and build its nest,
unknown and free!

Translation by Alice Stone Blackwell

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.

 

We are like those that love each other.
When undressing we discover two monstrous
strangers who hug themselves gropingly,
scars with which the hateful desire
indicates those that restlessly love each other:
the boredom, the suspicion that invincibly ties us
to its network, like in the sin of two adulterous gods.
Enamored like two insane ones,
two bloodthirsty stars, two dynasties
that with hunger dispute a kingdom,
we want to be justice, we stalk ourselves ferociously,
we trick ourselves, we infer the vile insults
with which the sky affronts those that love each other.
Just to set us afire a thousand times
the embrace in the world are those that love each other
A thousand times we die each day.

Translation by Dina Moscovici

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 175th birthday.

 

To Mr. Rufino Cuervo and Mr. Miguel A. Caro

How sad the night is
Tonight, the night is so sad
A sky without a single star
Row on, row on!

For the black woman of my soul,
I soak in sweat
As I toil away at sea,
What will she do? What will she do?

Will she sigh in woe
For her beloved zambo
Will she even remember me…
Weep on, weep on!

Women are like everything
In this wretched land;
With art fish are hauled out
From the sea, out from the sea!

With art iron is molten,
The mapaná snake is tamed;
Sorrows faithful and firm
They are no more, they are no more!

How dark the night is tonight,
Tonight how dark is the night,
It is as dark as absence.
Row on, row on!

Translation by Stephanos Stephanides

We present this work in honor of the 95th anniversary of the poet’s death.

 

Vibrating cicada: with your lyrical efforts
summers you sang in the blue distance,
and at the trembling of your resonant wings, it shone
all the sun in my eyes and in the smiling valley.

And you were silent when you saw me on the edge of the pampas
wander, when the dying ray of the day,
with the blonde palm trees that the afternoon swayed
I had loves, and the plain taught me dreams.

Today when languid mists dressed the prairie,
My soul awaits something without knowing what it awaits:
May the sun shine, may you return and soar in the light!

Not even a cloud over the eternal wasteland…
Since you no longer sing, winter has come
and the mute mists turn the mountains gray.

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 180th birthday.

 

Behold the pilgrim
How painful and changed!
Slowly leaning on his staff
How lonely he goes on his way!

On his first morning,
Joyful and singing soul
I leave home, like the dawn
The proud little bird leaves its nest.

Air and light, life and flowers,
I search the vast and cold
Region that the innocent fantasy
It adorned with magical glows.

See the world, hear the noise
of the big cities,
And only vanity of vanities
Find everywhere your afflicted spirit

Matter gives to his crying
How much the man offers him;
The laughter on her lips no longer blooms,
And I forget the native voice of the song.

He became thoughtful;
The clouds and the waves
His confidants are, and he deals alone
The most spare and most elusive site.

To his grief he answers
in the silent night,
The declining star weary
And in the maternal pielago it hides.

Vuelve, return to your center!
Nature to the unhappy
cry out; _Go back!_ a voice also tells him
Who always talks to him, friend, inside,

Oh sad! in the distance
See the days gone by
And to enjoy their joys again
Concentrate revived hope.

Impossible! madness!…
When was he able to his source
Reverse the miserable torrent
What tasted of the seas the bitterness?

It’s up the hill
With bad insurance I pass;
From setting sun to scant glow
The valley of childhood is mastered.

Ouch! that shady valley
that the paternal house
take shelter; that rumor with which it accompanies
Its soft tumbles the sacred river;

That embalmed aura
let your temples pray,
To a sick heart that wishes
Your old loneliness, do not say anything?

The poor pilgrim
He neither hears, nor sees, nor feels;
Of the Homeland the image in his mind
There is no longer anything but a divine ideal.

Invisible touches
And his eyelids close
Pious angel, and the illusion banishes,
And the sweet smile returns to his mouth.

What a silent farewell!
Who dead would believe him?
Looking at the true Homeland!
He is sleeping the dream of life!